The Forgotten Heroes of Fukushima

Since the disastrous March tsunami that devastated Japan’s eastern coast, some 18,000 workers have been sent to help clean up the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. James Nachtwey photographed many of the brave Japanese citizens who are putting themselves at risk to try to stabilize the contaminated reactors.

Other images, along with an accompanying story by Pico Iyer, appear in the January 2012 issue of Vanity Fair.

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Yoshiharu Nakata, 37, a worker from Osaka, photographed in the small hotel room in Iwaki Yumoto where he is temporarily housed while working at the Fukushima power plant, about 30 miles away.

Kanika Osumi, wife of Fukushima worker Nobukatsu Osumi, who died of a heart attack on the job. She holds his portrait in the modest apartment where they lived, in the city of Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture. She believes her husband's death was brought about by his work in the facility.